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Well, Deadlands has the weird thing where the Confederacy abolishes slavery, ostensibly to gain European support (with the subtext being they also needed more bodies for the war). It's a goofy oversimplification of the issues and definitely leans towards Confederate apologism, but at least I see where they were going with trying to excise the whole issue from the setting. And more pointedly, tell players that even if you're playing a Confederate character, being a bigot or a racist is still a villainous trait... in a really hamfisted way.
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Nov 5, 2014 22:59
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unseenlibrarian posted:The 'best' not-thought out implications about race in the Deadlands books is also in Back East the South, which basically says "Oh, race relations in the south have improved, they're about where they were at during WWII!" To be fair, lynchings of African-Americans were really on their way out by that point, and the KKK had peaked in the 1920s and was in rapid decline in the '40s as far as I can tell, but there was still a definite degree of monstrous, violent racism going on to be sure. Any degree of violence like that is tragic, but it was at least a far cry from the plague of brutality that African-Americans faced around the turn of the century.
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Nov 6, 2014 20:16
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gradenko_2000 posted:What's an example of a really bad game/module that came out of the OGL? It's been mentioned a couple of times that one of the byproducts was a glut of subpar products, but I've never really heard of one specifically. Pretty much anything Mongoose put out at the time; the Quintessential books were loving dire (I'll always remember "peasant warrior" as a prestige class), the Slayer's Guides (... to Female Gamers, yech), Power Classes, any of their books with "Ultimate" in the title... it's possible that some of it is okay, but chances are if you throw a rock at anything published by Mongoose from like '02 to '05 it probably deserves the impact. They glutted the market and along with folks like Fast Forward, really helped contribute to the idea that d20 books were just shoddy cash grabs. They've cleaned up their act to a good extent but can still be really hit or miss.
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Nov 11, 2014 14:16
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Evil Mastermind posted:As you can imagine, people weren't really sympathetic to Jim's problem since there were dozens upon dozens of people with zero industry experience who managed to release stuff without violating the OGL. On top of that, FFE's fans would try to explain to them "no, that's not how this works, just do this and you're good" and the advice was ignored. You'd think it would be hard, but I recall working on a d20 project where we were trying to do a collection of hells for planar adventuring, and no matter how many times I would mention "by the way, we can't use Planescape material", people would repeatedly bring up canon demons or locales or factions or whatever. Never underestimate the willful ignorance of fans. Night10194 posted:All this time speaking about bad OGL products, and from veterans of the FATAL and Friends thread, without mentioning Chris Fields? And his terrible abortion battle setting and Black Tokyo? Well, we're speaking more historically of the glut of crap during the d20 boom, which Fields post-dates.
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Nov 11, 2014 17:04
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unseenlibrarian posted:IIRC the pathfinder license doesn't have that clause, possibly because otherwise they'd have to give up Hillbilly incestuous rapist ogres as a core thing, I guess. I don't believe Fields uses the Pathfinder Compatibility License (which does have a decency clause) for the Black Tokyo line but instead publishes under the OGL. I believe he uses it for some other publications, tho. Paizo isn't beholden to live up to their own licensing standards since they aren't licensing themselves, naturally. (And they don't.)
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Nov 11, 2014 18:43
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unseenlibrarian posted:There's some conspiracy theories that the whole "We'll crowd all the other games out of the market" was basically just a snowjob for the Hasbro suits and it was really meant so that eventually Ryan Dancey could steal D&D out from under the company when the time came, and thus Pathfinder. I think this ascribes a level of competence and low cunning to Dancey that is not actually evident. Actually, it was Peter Adkison that believed that the OGL would free D&D from the suits and that it wouldn't be "imprisoned" again; ensuring that if Wizards of the Coast died, D&D wouldn't. Dancey originally proposed it from a business angle, as noted above. So it's actually partly true, but there wasn't one single reason the OGL was implemented. So I was reading the Mongoose history in Designers & Dragons after writing my post, and I just have to quote this: Designers & Dragons: the '00s posted:Enter Paradigm Concept’s announcement of “The Essential Elf,” which was eventually published as Eldest Sons: The Essential Guide to Elves (2003). When [Mongoose founder] Sprange heard of it, he immediately added The Quintessential Elf (2002) to Mongoose’s schedule — and actually beat Paradigm Concepts out the door. Sprange would later say that Quintessential Elf was the only book he ever publishing in reaction to a competitor — and only to protect the Quintessential line, which was by now big bucks for Mongoose. In case you're wondering - no, it's not a very good book.
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Nov 11, 2014 21:37
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Forums Terrorist posted:Dickwolves. It's been nearly a year since Krahulik's New Year's resolution and I haven't heard of any more PR disasters out of Penny Arcade. I wouldn't fault anybody for not wanting to support them, but I wouldn't blame anybody for going at this point, either. Hopefully all that nonsense will remain in the past.
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Nov 13, 2014 15:37
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Alternately: do you like long, grueling lines, waiting up to two hours in advance for big events, and watching people draw nothing but penises in Pictochat? If so, you will love the poo poo out of PAX! 
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Nov 13, 2014 18:22
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Evil Mastermind posted:That's pretty much why I stick to the Tabletop area. It's been improving over the past few years, but it's still mostly focused on board games over RPGs. And the huge-rear end lines are pretty much relegated to the main videogame floor. Yeah. Honestly, some of the lines are worth it- like, waiting two hours 1for a whole night of concerts is worth it in my estimation. There is a lot of fun to be have but there are also caveats, to be sure.
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Nov 13, 2014 19:34
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Ewen Cluney posted:In further news on that front, I'm planning to do some Schoolgirl RPG mini supplements, one titled "More Tables," and the other for adding schoolboys (with blatant Cromartie High influence), and also putting together a basic "Golden Friday Edition" of Retail Magic, with the aim of publishing it on Black Friday next week. I miss Powers, mostly! Though some more school-specific tables like "favorite subject" or "club memberships" seems like a gimme.
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Nov 20, 2014 06:11
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potatocubed posted:As far as I can tell, the people behind the Escapist did two things: Also The Escapist gave Zak Smith a good deal of (nerdly) exposure. also that's hilarious because they're like a gold standard for "poo poo that's wrong with gaming 'journalism'"
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Nov 20, 2014 13:51
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The Escapist is a bad website. I mean, where do you even start? The complete devotion of their magazine to ad revenue? Inane quizzes and tests designed to puff up hits? Failing to pay employees? Pressuring employees on behalf of advertisers? Championing #Gamergate? Giving good press and voices to jerks like Zak S or Desborough? Regularly banning commenters for criticism? I remember when The Escapist was actually pretty good, but they sold their voice to investors, and the investors sold them to advertisers, and they toss blame anywhere but where it belongs - right at their feet.
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Nov 20, 2014 21:26
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You can find MovieBob's blog here: http://moviebob.blogspot.com/ Zero Punctuation on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLAbMhAYRuCUhC85vZRvBBdYPJk-9pLN-8
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Nov 21, 2014 06:25
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Galaga Galaxian posted:And here I thought everyone did the smart thing and put their ignore list to use. People that bust in to defend him are good candidates for my list. Well, except for admins.  I mean, if you like the guy that's cool, but it's probably not the finest reason to come in swinging. You're just going to have folks dig in their heels that way.
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Nov 23, 2014 07:21
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zen death robot posted:What are your feelings about communications systems for internet Role-Playing-Games? IRC/Skype/Google Hangouts? I haven't really done any of those! I'm an old-school MUSH / MUX telnet user, and help run an online MUCK. I play in two games around a table each week, so the idea of scheduling another fixed block of time to nerd it up is probably out of the time being. I do a lot of Play-by-Post in The Game Room, tho. Alouicious posted:So basically it's a bad game because it exists around Apocalypse World I think comparing it directly to Apocalypse World is a bad idea, mainly because they're not trying to do exactly the same thing. Apocalypse World is about the trials and tribulations of a community; Dungeon World is an old-school fantasy adventure given a free-form makeover. I'd agree that Dungeon World would have been better being more progressive (much like 13th Age), but if compare it to all of the other games going for the same feel, and it's still miles beyond the majority of the OSR / d20 movement as far as doing something interesting. and actually capturing the fantasy genre.
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Nov 23, 2014 10:04
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Slimnoid posted:Rifts comes to mind. The worst thing about Rifts character creation taking so long is only because the way skills are organized is so bad. They could easily have character creation down to 15-30m minutes if the games actually presented material in a way intended for actual use. Slimnoid posted:That I think, is mostly due to Jonathan Tweet being very much a grognard in terms of rules. Ahahahaha what- I think he's very much a grognard in regards to Dungeons & Dragons, but I don't think can play On the Edge or Everway and consider him grognardy in the slightest. He was one of the most innovative game designers in the industry prior to his long tenure with Wizards of the Coast.
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Nov 23, 2014 19:58
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Kai Tave posted:I would hardly classify his work on 13th Age as "innovative" in the slightest and might actually like the game more if he spent less time doing dumb poo poo like making the Monk bad and more of that actual innovation thing. Stuff like the One Unique Thing? There's a lot that is actually innovative in 13th Age. And there's stuff that isn't. It's unapologetically derived from Dungeons & Dragons, and that isn't always a great thing, but overall it's on one of the more progressive games based on D&D.
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Nov 23, 2014 20:16
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Kai Tave posted:The One Unique Thing is cute but unless it's changed since the last time I played 13A it's basically cosmetic. "What makes your character unique?" isn't the high water mark in tradgame innovation in the year of our lord 2014. I don't know of a game that's come before that's codified it in that way. The question is not "is it mechanically rigorous?", but "is it innovative?". Also, bear in mind I said most of his innovative work came before Wizards. Ars Magica, Over the Edge, Everway - all of those were tremendously innovative, if often forgotten due to a lack of great commercial success. Even Dungeons & Dragons 3rd Edition was tremendously innovative for its time - the parroting of its mechanics has made its flaws stand out quite a bit, but it certainly didn't just ape Advanced Dungeons & Dragons 2nd edition.
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Nov 23, 2014 20:34
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Slimnoid posted:The quickest I could get to making a Rifts/Palladium character was about 45 minutes, and that was assuming I'd stick to one or two books. In my experience the main issue comes from having to cross-reference skills and bonuses. There's no reason most of that poo poo isn't done for you in the character class writeup - say, if a character has Lore: Showtunes at +10%, and Lore: Showtunes starts at 45%, why not just list it as 55% under the class? But no, Rifts insists that it lists it at +10%, and then you look it up, and then look back again, and then literally do that for two dozen skills or more. Same with things like physical skills - it'll list the physical skills under the class, but not what bonuses they give, so you have to look them up one by one and add it all up. If they just gave a class' starting attribute and combat bonuses, that'd be a big help. Same goes for things like damage values from supernatural strength, etc. Better layout where it simply adds up most of the starting bonuses for each class for would easily speed up character creation by half in my rough estimation. Of course, the ultimate solution would be to make it a better game, but barring that, it could be a far better implemented game.
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Nov 23, 2014 20:47
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Slimnoid posted:Do that, and delete at least a quarter of the skills, and you'd make an improvement. Well, yeah, all that falls under "make it a better game"; remove skills, codify skill percentages, add an actual skill system... it's kind of like when I toyed with making a better version of Pathfinder, the answer is that you probably can, it just that the better you want to make it, the further you're going away from the OGL, in my opinion. I'm reminded of an old Car Wars joke where a motorcyclist goes to an arms manufacturer to build him a better motorcycle, so the arms manufacturer adds some bigger weapons, but then he needs more wheels, and he adds what he thinks is enough armor, which requires him to replace the wheels with treads. The motorcyclist comes back and says "this isn't a motorcycle anymore, you've built a tank", to which the arms manufacturer quips "that may be, but it's still the only motorcycle I'd want to drive".
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Nov 23, 2014 20:59
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I'm bewildered of the idea of having a group that only plays Pathfinder. It's so at odds with almost every group I've ever known. Granted, I've had groups with perennial games, like GURPS or Amber or Call of Cthulhu or Mutants & Masterminds, but the idea of playing the same game year in, year out seems like a special kind of hell. I've been running lots of short-form games and my group has been happy to play everything I put before them. I've had one player balk at World of Darkness games in the past, and I balked at Star Trek games in my youth, but overall I've never known a group that isn't accepting regarding whatever somebody feels like running.
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Nov 24, 2014 20:40
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I think one of the things is that D&D (and by extension, Pathfinder) also encourages really long, laborious campaigns that tie up groups for months or even years. I don't think it's deliberate, but I've thought the fact that it does is fairly brilliant for maintaining the game's market dominance. People are more likely to invest themselves financially and psychologically in a game that runs for two years than one that doesn't, after all, as opposed to games that you can pick up, run, and dispose of after several weeks when the story's done.
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Nov 24, 2014 22:46
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ravenkult posted:GMS needs some lessons from Mykal Lakim. It bears mentioning that Lakim is surrounded by a dutiful fanbase of sockpuppets. His activity on Facebook is like some kind of bizarre performance art.
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Nov 25, 2014 05:42
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Error 404 posted:Who is Lakim again? 
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Nov 25, 2014 05:51
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FMguru posted:Pity party at Skarka's place! Maybe he should write a book about it.
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Nov 25, 2014 17:41
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Evil Mastermind posted:Wasn't the big thing in L5R that you could only play samurai? Samurai and shugenja, initially. Later on they added courtiers, spies, and monks (as well as variations thereof) as regular play types. In most of the recent editions samurai have no issues with bows, most of that idea comes from John Wick's Way of the Wasp way back in the day.
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Nov 29, 2014 19:42
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Covok posted:You can play those, but they do call them all samurai, IIRC. Like, I remember in 4th ed they use samurai as an umbrella term then you clarify if you're a bushi, shugenjai, or something else. Right, most PCs are part of the samurai class (unless you're playing a ronin or monk, usually), I was just using the term colloquially. The game calls warriors bushi.
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Nov 29, 2014 19:47
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I think one thing about Legend of the Five Rings is that it was always more of historical Japan by way of Kurosawa and Musashi than anything historical. That's not to defend such, but that it has always drawn more from fiction and mythology than historical material. It's gotten better over time, and the 4th edition is far more nuanced than the 1st edition ever was, but it will always have that well-intentioned weeaboo air Wick and Dancey instilled into it. It's so much its own entrenched thing at this point that I'm not sure it could shake off all of that without becoming something essentially different, though I don't know why they haven't at least excised things like the aforementioned slurs. Even as an L5R fan I can't help but cringe like hell to hear the calls of "banzai!" from the CCG players, and I've outgrown the game to some extent because of nonsense like that. Sengoku has the issue that when it was published, the history of feudal Japan here in the states wasn't as well-researched as it is now - which really shows up in the aforementioned Shinobi - so even the best academic research was limited. The main issue with researching that period and place is that some of the primary sources that were used by people in the past were biased as gently caress, so perfect accuracy is impossible, but it's now possible to be a lot better than we Americans have been in the past.
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Nov 30, 2014 02:19
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Maxwell Lord posted:Like they give a real metaphysical basis to the caste system, with the noble families actually tied to the gods, but Kurosawa's Samurai films- probably the most common reference point for anyone playing samurai games- are all about how the class system was utter bullshit. It's an excellent point to make, really. The worst was 1st edition, where commoners were literally inferior, which I found dumb and embarrassing even when I didn't know better. Later editions have given greater parity but never actual equality. Zoq-Fot-Pik posted:"Who gives a poo poo" Tumblr-esque cultural appropriation: Idealized or otherwise incorrect depictions of samurai in a fantasy role playing game (which the Japanese definitely do not remotely care about). To some extent; but the Legend of the Five Rings CCG flopped badly when marketed in Japan. Granted, that probably has as much to do with what's popular in games there as opposed to here, so it's hard to speak to the exact reasons. Whether or not gamers over there cared about Legend of the Five Rings I can't say, but they certainly didn't care for Legend of the Five Rings.
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Nov 30, 2014 02:34
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Zoq-Fot-Pik posted:Depicting King Arthur as an anime girl who fights anime fights with magic powers is a willful misrepresentation of English historical culture by reducing the Arthurian legends into a kitschy clash of superheroes. I think it's worth pointing out that Arthur was... uh... not historical. It would probably be better to bring up something like Jeanne D'Arc to try and make that sort of point. Of course "they did it so we should too" isn't necessarily the finest defense, either. Zoq-Fot-Pik posted:If I had to guess, the failure of L5R over in Japan was probably due to the fact that Japan has their own tabletop game and CCG industries. I think the last Western tabletop game that was popular in Japan was probably AD&D 2e and the last (and only) popular Western CCG was probably Magic the Gathering. And L5R is certainly neither of those. Well, there are myriad possible reasons, as I mentioned. From what I understand, they're just as entrenched in elves and dragons as we are, but have certainly branched out in different ways from there.
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Nov 30, 2014 02:42
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Night10194 posted:As someone else pointed out, it's also boring as poo poo. It's true, nobody has enjoyed it over its fourteen years of continuous publication over four editions.  Honestly, the social restrictions are part of how I've built it up as an engaging game; trying to accomplish things within your social role and within the bounds of accepted is a challenge you don't see in a lot of other games. A lot of games set PCs up as rebels or outcasts; having them most often being conformists (though players can always defy that) sets up an entirely different dynamic to play with. Where the mold bends or breaks is where things get interesting, but you have to be willing to buy into it. Zoq-Fot-Pik posted:Yes, this Japanese video game makes light of a brutal series of European conflicts spanning a century that affected the lives of hundreds of thousands. Disgusting. I enjoyed playing through it. But I thought your strawman could use a little freshening up; it was looking a little worn. Zoq-Fot-Pik posted:If this was in the game it probably isn't anymore. I'm pretty sure the game has changed a lot since it was first released. It's never been the case. In Rokugan, the eating of red meat is considered scandalous or gross for the samurai caste, which is still true in 4th edition, but isn't a universally held belief. Some regions eat it anyway. Ultimately I think Legend of the Five Rings has issues, but I think it's also a good springboard for thinking of this sort of thing. A lot of my reading on feudal Japan stems from running the game, and I tended to diverge towards historical Japan more than the game does. It's easy to think of it as a purely negative thing, but it can be positive for those who want to explore things more deeply than the stereotypes and notions the game sets up (some of which have real-world analogues, but which most of which don't). Of course, those who find it offensive are free to speak up or just vote with their dollars. I think it's a fine game to play even with some of its issues, it's just good to be aware of those issues and address them as you feel appropriate. I wish we had more nuanced language for cultural issues than throwing around the racist label. I think where the game falls down is ignorance, which I generally see as a different thing than jerks who give up their hair for hatred, and probably needs to be approached in a different way.
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Nov 30, 2014 04:08
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Night10194 posted:When I say it's boring, I mean it's boring to the extent that it believes everyone in a culture with such values will follow them all the time (unless you're Wick's ultra-speshul ruthless manchildren de jure, the Scorpion) rather than navigating how people break their values and publicly uphold them, etc. I'm not saying no-one can enjoy the game or setting, I'm saying I didn't. That's fair enough! bowmore posted:Only reason I was wondering is because I found the rule books and I thought it'd be fun to run even if it's terrible. It's got that post-90s RPG feel, where the core is around a benefit / drawback system (with the usual complaints around such) that also allows you to basically buy your supernatural type (if any), but has some nods in that less powerful characters get more drama points to spend, and players roll all the dice. It's pretty decent but it hasn't aged too well - its attempts at trying to recapture the show's wit come across as pretty goofy today - but if you have a group still fond of the show it's a fun enough lark.
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Nov 30, 2014 06:03
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Maxwell Lord posted:It's not the only thing that screwed them over but I do recall hearing that they ended up owing money to Fox at the end of it. Ultimately FOX sat on license approval for books and left Eden hanging, so they had money invested in work but couldn't publish it to make their money back. Eventually couldn't pay the renewal fees, and so they lost both the license and the investment they'd laid out for supplements on the line. It did a lot of damage, and that was followed with the general lassitude of RPG sales in the wake of the initial d20 collapse. Eden Studios never actually went under but just didn't release much for ages, but recently have been doing Conspiracy X and AFMBE kickstarters to revive some of their "lost" game lines.
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Nov 30, 2014 10:21
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